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New Mexico’s accountability system places a strong weight on student growth.
For elementary and middle schools, 25 percent of their overall grade is based on student proficiency rates, a simple measure of student achievement that clearly indicates how many students are meeting grade-level expectations. Another 15 percent is students’ scale scores, adjusted for student demographics. This measure provides an indication of the average performance in the school, but it can mask high and low performance. Another 10 percent is allocated to a school’s overall year-to-year student growth. Finally, New Mexico adds another 20 percent allocation for growth among each school’s bottom quartile of students, and another 20 percent for the school’s top three quartiles. High schools are rated on the same measures, but they are generally given lower weights.